Posts Tagged With: baptism

Another characteristic trait of Luke’s Gospel is his emphasis on the Holy Spirit. Of course, we see this most clearly in Acts, volume two of the set, but there have been several time already where mention of the Holy Spirit has been made when it was not in Matthew or Mark.

The adult John was clearly a prophet, one who spoke necessary words even if they were confrontational, even if they would get him killed one day. (I noticed today that verses 4-6 were first spoken by Isaiah, who tradition says was sawn in two; then John the Baptist, who was beheaded; then Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I have a dream” speech, who was assassinated. People don’t usually like prophets.) John came preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins and offered a water baptism that brought this to one’s life. Yet he also says Jesus will do more than simply offer repentance and baptism for forgiveness.

To all of them John responded: “I am baptizing you with water. But someone is coming who is stronger than I am. I don’t deserve to untie his sandal-strap. He will baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire.” (3:16)

The thing that was new with Jesus was not baptism, it was the gift of the Holy Spirit offered to all who would follow him and come into Christ through Christian baptism. Baptism was the ritual; the Holy Spirit was the power and the result. Even forgiveness was available through John’s baptism; it was the Spirit that was missing. Remember Acts 19 (also written by Luke) where this was precisely the issue with a group of people baptized by John but who were missing the Holy Spirit? To punctuate the point, in this chapter Luke includes Jesus’ own baptism in which the Holy Spirit comes upon him.

A life with forgiveness is wonderful, but we are destined to end right back where we were before. We would be a people obsessed with forgiveness because of our permanent fallen state. What we need is empowerment to become something better than what we presently are. That is the importance of the gift of the Holy Spirit. God not only forgives us, He empowers us by that Spirit to live a life that is progressively more holy and capable than it was before.

I wonder if sometimes we are guilty of still only preaching “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (3:3). We emphasize the need to be washed clean of sin. We encourage each other to turn from sin. And, yes, we become obsessed with forgiveness because we have missed the part that we can actually become something different than an incapable sinner. Acts 2:38, a verse ultra-familiar to many of us here, says:

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Have we forgotten about the last part? And if so, are we missing the most important part? Are we missing the one unique characteristic of Jesus’ baptism, the one part that is essential to becoming God’s people in a fallen world, the Holy Spirit?

When I was a child on sunny days I liked to play with my shadow. My friends and I would make shadow puppets, play shadow tag, and try to guess what animals the other was making with their hands.

It would be a rather silly thing to do the same thing as adults.

Yet that is what the false teachers in Colossae were suggesting:

So don’t let anyone pass judgment on you in a question of food or drink, or in the matter of festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These things are a shadow cast by the coming reality — and the body that casts the shadow belongs to the king. (2:16-17)

For Paul, the best kind of knowledge is the relational understanding of knowing Jesus, not just the esoteric knowledge of the false teachers for whom Jesus was more of a concept than a person (2:2-3).

Paul also emphasizes the relational side of baptism, something some of us today may have forgotten too. Baptism is first and foremost about being buried and raised with Jesus (2:12). Water baptism is always imitation of and a mysterious participation in the more important reality of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection; it is never the point itself.

Maybe that is a sign of all false teaching: it promotes a religion without a full and personal relationship with Jesus.

I don’t say that because I have been programmed to by my religious tradition that has exalted this chapter since the beginning of the Restoration Movement almost 200 years ago. They often championed this chapter as a blueprint for receiving Christ in a particular way. That is certainly in here, but that kind of reductionism misses the point.

Acts 2 is a sunburst of spiritual power. The original Great Awakening. It is the start of something new, though it was spoken of long ago (Acts 2:16-21). So many things we have been seeing are coming together here, and so many things will launch out from here. The Celts would have called this one of those “thin places” where heaven touches earth in an explosion of energy, awareness, ability, and change. Now that is a reason to exalt a chapter!

Amongst other points, this chapter is so wonderful because the apostles finally begin to get this kingdom Jesus has been talking about.

They begin to see that “Death” is the real enemy that has to be vanquished not Rome, and that the battle was waged on a cross and in a tomb not in Judea (2:24, 27, 31-32)

They were able to grasp that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise to David to have a descendent on the throne, but that this was a different sort of throne (2:30-31)

They boldly claimed that “Jesus is Lord” (2:36) instead of saying “Caesar is Lord,” a common cry by the AD 60s when Acts was written if not in the AD 30s when the actual events took place. Somehow it was possible for Jesus to be Lord even while Caesar was on a throne.

They were understanding that the greatest tyranny comes at the hands of Sin, and the greatest freedom is from this enemy (2:38, 40, 47)

They were switching from a worldview that said Israel is our most important allegiance to seeing the fledgling collection of Jesus-followers as the Great Community (2:42-47)

Notice, they didn’t really get it in Acts 1. Now they begin to in Acts 2. What changed? What happened? The only thing that changed was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God. God is changing them from the inside out.